Larry King Reveals Secret Lung Cancer Diagnosis

The 'Larry King Now' host hopes to raise awareness on lung cancer and urges people to get a chest X-ray.

Larry King is a cancer survivor. Speaking to Mario Lopez on "Extra", the 83-year-old TV personality opened up on his secret battle with lung cancer. The TV host said he was lucky to be diagnosed at stage 1, thanks to a routine chest X-ray.

"I have a checkup every year. I've gone through a lot in my life - I've had a heart attack and heart surgery. Part of my checkup is the chest X-ray, and that is the protocol. I do it every year... it was always normal. Then the doctor says, 'I see a little spot here. Let's do a CAT scan, so they do a CAT scan, and they say, 'Let's do a PET scan' ... I don't think there are any other scans," he said.

"You have a small [spot]. It could be malignant, it could be benign - we ought to take it out," the doctor told him. "On July 17, I had the surgery here at Cedars. They took it out. It was malignant," he recalled. "They tested it. They said, 'You are fine.' It was stage 1."

"I had no clue at all. If I had not had the chest X-ray, it would have progressed," he continued. "The reason I go public with it is to tell people, 'Get a chest X-ray.' I smoked for thirty years. The day of the heart attack, I never smoked again, and I smoked three packs a day - I smoked in the shower. Thirty years later, I said to the doctor, 'Is this connected with that?' Absolutely."

Now Larry King is cancer-free after the spot on his lung was removed in a surgery. "They showed me my latest chest X-ray, which is all clear," he told Us Weekly. "It was fun to see where that spot was and there is no spot now. They took off 20 percent of the lung."

Larry King currently hosts "Larry King Now" on Hulu. He previously hosted "Larry King Live" on CNN from 1985 to 2010.